Barbed Wire and Bedclothes
       

I will rip these sheets off you like a bandage,
like a rush of birds—lure you with coffee,

crisp your toast until it's so black
no preserves can save the taste—

anything to rescue us from the staleness
creeping into our lives. We sought adventure once,

so cut the barbed wire now and chance the landmines.
The battlefield is better than these pale pillows.

Let us be prisoners, comrades, or casualties.
I would rather have you wounded and bleeding

than flawless and whole in this shroud of bedclothes.

Tweet

Copyright © 2017 Alice Pettway All rights reserved
from The Time of Hunger | O Tempo de Chuva
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission